Throwback Thursday: When Unbxd Went to IRCE 2015, The World’s Largest eCommerce Conference

It’s that time of the year again! If you’re a part of the online retailing community, you’re probably aware that IRCE is one of the biggest events in the industry on the planet!

IRCE is special event for Unbxd, because it not only provides us with the opportunity to network with some of the retail industry stalwarts from across the globe, but also gives us a chance make a valuable contribution to their companies’ revenue through technology and industry best practices.

Unbxd at IRCE 2015: Same time, last year

The 11th edition of the industry’s flagship event was everything we hoped it would be, and more. The event gave us a chance to meet some of the top retailers (or e-tailers) in the world, from every possible segment.

Held at the McCormick Place, Chicago, from the 2nd till the 5th of June, the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition saw over 14,000 attendees, making it a very exciting place for us to be in! As a silver sponsor, Unbxd was given the perfect opportunity to showcase its industry leading Context-aware Site-search and 1:1 Personalized Product Recommendations technology.

The Unbxd Booth at IRCE 2015

But it wasn’t just 3 days of meetings, networking, and seminars. We decided to have a little fun on the side, painting the town red while trying out some of Chicago’s best pizzas (Giordano’s, Lou Malnati’s, Pizzeria Uno – we tried them all!), celebrating Chicago’s first Stanley Cup Final win of the season (Go Blackhawks!), attending some great after parties, and mastering the art of clicking selfies!

Perfecting our selfie game!

A Few Things We Learnt At IRCE 2015

The good folks at IRCE created an app for the event, which made it really easy for team Unbxd to connect, and strike a conversation with the conference attendees. And this helped us not only reach out to prospects, but to thought leaders, subject matter experts, and industry influencers as well.

And what makes these conversations special? We’d say the fact that they helped us gather some really valuable insights about the industry, and the future of online retail makes them an essential part of the IRCE experience. Here are some of the few things we learnt at IRCE 2015:

Improving Customer Engagement through enhanced online customer experience: Providing an engaging experience from the first “touch” can really help you win over first time customers

Providing a seamless site-search, and check out experience: Site search and shopping cart abandonment is a pain point for most online retailers, and sees them lose over 40% of their total visitors each day. Providing a seamless site search and check out experience can be that secret weapon for these retailers, which can help them drive conversions, and make sure their visitors do leave them “empty-handed”

Personalization: Each step in the conversion funnel is an opportunity for ecommerce websites to offer a personalized experience to consumers. And with the vast amount of data available, it is important for them to “zero in” on the most relevant data to deliver a truly personalized experience. Providing 1:1 personalized recommendations is a great way to cross-sell and up-sell.

Geo-targeting, and segmenting customers: Targeting based on visitor location, coupled with the ability to provide a localized inventory to visitors is the next “big thing” in online merchandising, that can really help you get repeat visitors. And we can’t emphasize enough on what a game-changer this can be for online retail.

Optimizing shopping experiences for multiple device types: With a plethora of devices at the visitors’ disposal, it is important to optimize your website’s experience for each device type to ensure maximum conversions. This is increasingly relevant with a customer viewing a product on a minimum of three different device types before making that final purchase.

If we were to sum it all up, the one common, underlying theme that formed the crux of all our conversations was Customer Experience. Customer Delight through a superior Customer Experience was of prime importance, and we learnt that this was also an area of concern for most online retailers, especially while trying to maintain consistency across multiple channels and device types.

We’re Coming to Chicago for IRCE 2016!

Having taken notes from our IRCE 2015, we have worked extremely hard to bring you a product that takes checks all the right boxes, while ensuring that you are truly “future ready”. We’re coming to IRCE 2016 from June 7-10, and can’t wait for you to come and check it out. If you’re at IRCE, do drop in at Booth #1856 to to see how Unbxd can help you make your conversions skyrocket, literally!